【推荐2】Do you feel like you can remember things better when you actively engage with the information and create your own version of it?     1     This phenomenon has important implications when it comes to understanding how people learn.

Tests on the generation effect show that when users encounter a list of words presented in the form of fragments (片段), they will engage several areas of the brain to create words to fill in the blanks.     2     Researchers believe this is because of the deeper level of cognitive (认知的) engagement involved in the process of creating new words.

Teachers and instructors need to be aware of the role the generation effect can play in the classroom. Students who just receive written material they can read may not understand it as fully as students who engage with it by taking notes, completing writing exercises, and so forth.     3     Rather than giving students a list of correctly spelled words and asking them to memorize it, the teacher can ask students to complete worksheets where they must fill in blanks to spell the words.

    4     If a student simply reads a textbook, he/she will not absorb the information as well as when he/she takes notes and recreates charts and other materials presented in the book. Students preparing for an examination may find it helpful to write out material from the text, rephrasing in their own words as appropriate to make sure they fully understand the material.     5    

In a word, it all boils down to active learning versus passive learning. Spending a few minutes actively producing content may just be the thing you were missing in your learning routine.

A．That’s called the Generation Effect.

B．For students, the generation effect can also be important.

C．When they are asked to repeat the list later, their recall will be better.

D．A common example of the generation effect can be seen in spelling lessons for young students.

E．The simple act of writing can trigger(激发) the generation effect and help the students perform better on examinations.

F．They will find that actively using new information may create relationships between tasks in examinations.

G．The process of generating content may initiate some particular encoding (编码) processes that do not happen when simply reading.

【推荐1】Venus (金星) has long played second to its redder, smaller and more distant neighbor. Given how inhospitable (不宜居住的) Venus has appeared to be, we have spent the majority of the last century pinning some of our biggest hopes of finding signs of life on Mars.

That all changed on September 15, 2020. It was announced that a strange gas called phosphine had been spotted in the clouds above Venus. The gas is produced by microbes, extremely small living things, here on Earth, so the discovery has renewed hopes that there might be life on Venus. Now we need to know for sure.

There is, after all, only so much we can do with ground-based instruments. Venus is extremely bright. This brightness, caused by the intense reflection of sunlight from its thick clouds and highlighted because of its closer distance to Earth, basically blinds our instruments from making more detailed observations of the planet. It is like trying to look at the road while another car’s high beams (远光灯) are pointed in your direction.

“To really get to the heart of this question, we need to go to Venus,” says Paul Byrne, a planetary scientist at North Carolina State University. But of course, that is easier said than done. Temperatures at the surface reach 464℃, and pressures are 89 times higher than on Earth. Only the Soviet Union has successfully landed on the Venusian surface—its Venera 13 lander functioned for 127 minutes before succumbing to the bad weather in 1982. It is not easy to justify spending hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars on a mission that could be over in a matter of hours without giving us what we need.

An orbiter is the most sensible start. Unlike ground-based observations, orbiters can peer into the atmosphere and would have a better time observing how phosphine levels change over time or over what regions they are most concentrated. An orbiter also presents the opportunity to complete more challenging projects by potentially venturing directly into the planet’s atmosphere. A sample return mission could be possible, in which a spacecraft flies into the atmosphere and bottles up some gas to bring back to Earth for laboratory analysis.

Trying to find life on another planet, however, is not simply a walk from point A to point B. No single mission to Venus will be able to finish all the work necessary to answer the question. It might be time to think not just about what the next mission to Venus should be, but what a whole new era of Venus exploration would look like: a group of multiple missions that explore Venus in joint efforts—the way we currently do with Mars.

1. Venus is considered inhospitable to humans mainly because ________.

A．the pressure of the planet is too low

B．the surface of the planet is too bright

C．the density (密度) of the clouds is too low

D．the surface temperature of the planet is too high

2. The underlined phrase “succumbing to” in paragraph 4 is closest in meaning to “________”.

A．giving in to	B．keeping away from
C．making up for	D．putting up with

3. According to the article, scientists will be better able to reveal the secret about Venus by ________.

A．sending astronauts to the planet

B．using a more advanced space telescope

C．launching an orbiter to the planet

D．redesigning their ground-based instruments

4. What can we infer from the article?

A．We have little hope of successfully finding life on Venus.

B．We have a firm determination to discover life on other planets.

C．We have spent much time studying phosphine in the past century.

D．We have attempted to land on the Venusian surface in the last century.

【推荐2】Your brain is mainly composed of about 85 billion neurons (神经元), which is more than the number of stars you can see with the eyes.     1     For example, when you’re writing, some neurons send the “move fingers” message to other neurons and this message then travels through the nerves (神经) to your fingers. The electrical signals that are communicated from one neuron to another are what allows you to do everything: write, think, see, jump, talk, and so on. Each neuron can be connected with up to 10,000 other neurons , leading to plenty of connections in your brain, which is known as neural nets.

When you’re learning, important changes happen in your brain, including the creation of new connections between your neurons.     2     The more you practice, the stronger these connections become. As your connections strengthen, the messages are delivered increasingly faster, making them more effective. That is how you become better at anything you learn whether it is playing football, reading, drawing, and so on. We can compare the connections between your neurons to paths in a forest. Walking through a forest without a path is difficult, because you have to push the plants and the branches out of the way to make your way.     3     On the contrary, when you stop using the path, the plants grow back, and the path slowly disappears. This is very similar to what happens in your brain—when you stop practicing something, the connections between your neurons weaken and can finally be removed.     4     However, it’s possible for some neural networks to become so strong that the paths or connections never completely disappear.

    5     Practicing repeatedly makes your neurons active and makes you learn. These changes happen as early as when a baby is in his mother’s stomach and continues throughout a person’s life.

A．Neurons are usually divided into different types according to their location.

B．But the more you use the same path, the easier and more practicable it becomes.

C．The question is how to help your neurons to create and strengthen their connections.

D．A neuron is a cell sending information in the form of electrical signals to other neurons.

E．That’s why it’s hard to start reading again when school starts if you haven’t read all summer.

F．The ability of your brain to change is to create, strengthen or weaken connections between neurons.

G．The fact that learning rewires your neurons shows that the brain changes and does not remain fixed.

【推荐3】Many people believe that working to the maximum is the secret to success, but research has found that moderation(适度) also gets results on the job.

In a study led by Ellen Langer of Harvard University, researchers asked people to translate sentences into a new made-up language. Subjects who practiced the language moderately beforehand made fewer errors than those who practiced extensively or not at all. High levels of knowledge can make people too attached to traditional ways of viewing problems across fields the arts, sciences, and politics. High conscientiousness is related to lower job performance, especially in simple jobs where it doesn’t pay to be a perfectionist.

How long we stay on the clock and how we spend that time are under careful examination in many workplaces. The young banker who eats lunch at his desk is probably seen as a go-getter, while his colleagues who chat over a relaxed conference-room meal get dirty looks from the corner office. “People from cultures that value relationships more than ours does are shocked by the thought of eating alone in front of a computer”, says Art Markman, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas, Austin. Social interaction has been shown to lift mood(情绪) and get people thinking in new directions and in ways that could help improve any post-lunch effort.

Markman also promotes off-task time. “Part of being a good thinker is experiencing things that are seemingly unrelated to what you are working on at the moment but give you fresh ideas about your work,” he says. “Also, there is a lot of research showing that a positive mood leads to higher levels of productivity and creativity. So, when people do things to increase their life satisfaction, they also make themselves more effective at work.”

1. What does Ellen Langer’s study show?

A．It is worthwhile to be a perfectionist	B．Translation makes people knowledgeable.
C．Simpler jobs require greater caution.	D．Moderate effort produces the best result.

2. The underlined word “go-getter” in paragraph 3 refers to someone Who_______.

A．is good at handling pressure	B．works hard to become successful
C．a has a natural talent for his job.	D．gets on well with his co-workers

3. What can be inferred from the last paragraph?

A．A good thinker is able to inspire other people.

B．Experience unrelated to your job is useless.

C．A cheerful mood helps make a creative mind.

D．Focusing on what you do raises productivity.

4. What does the text seem to advocate?

A．Middle-of-the-road work habits.	B．Balance between work and family.
C．Long-standing cultural traditions.	D．Harmony in the work environment.